Appreciating Life Through Biological Microscopes

What are biological microscopes? How do these instruments differ from industrial microscopes? Can you differentiate its use from other microscopes such as stereo microscopes?

Well, to make matters clearer, remember your high school science class. When you talk about biology, you are actually studying living organisms. In short, when you talk about biology, you are studying about life – in all its forms and aspects.

It is from this premise that biological microscopes are created. And it should be from this same rationale that you will understand what biological microscopes are used for.

Biological microscopes are those that are used in laboratories, hospitals and even schools to observe specimens that would later be used for research and diagnostics. Under the lenses of these microscopes, you are given the chance to take a closer look at the cell and its components. And depending on the type of your microscope, you are even treated to seeing these natural wonders in full color.

Technology Used

The most common technology used in biological microscopes is through a compound microscope. This type of microscope utilizes multiple lenses, giving you more power and accuracy when examining very small specimens. This is the image that comes to mind right away when you are thinking about microscopes.

Then you have inverted microscopes. In this type, you are given the chance to see through thicker specimens. It is because with inverted microscopes, the illumination system is on the top-most part, followed by the stage (where you put the slide) and then the lenses. As such, the lenses are closer to the specimen being examined. In effect, this “type” of biological microscopes allow you to have a clearer view of a thicker specimen.

Biological microscopes also come in more advanced technologies. Usually, these types are more expensive, and less common. Examples are acoustic and ultrasonic microscopes. These biological microscopes make use of very high frequency ultrasound in examining specimens. This characteristic gives them the ability to penetrate solid objects in a non-destructive and non-invasive manner. From this type of microscope, cracks, voids and other defects are made visible.

Other technologies used are microwave microscopes, scanning electron microscopes, laser microscopes and polarizing microscopes, among others.

Talk about Eyepieces

Biological microscopes also come in forms that differ in terms of the number of eyepieces used. An eyepiece – also referred to as the ocular – is that part where you look through in order to see the specimen being observed. There are monocular, binocular and trinocular microscopes. As the name suggests, monocular means having only one eyepiece, binocular, two, and trinocular, three eyepieces. Now, you would think why these differences?

Monocular and binocular are common. You see them at school and they were the ones used in your science class. A trinocular microscope is less common and you wonder what the third eyepiece is for when we only have a pair of eyes? Well, the third eyepiece comes in handy to let another observer – like your teacher – take a view of the object you’re examining. As such, the two of you can look at the specimen at the same time. Also, the third eyepiece is useful for connecting your biological microscopes to a camera and have the image projected to cater to a larger audience.

As you can see, biological microscopes come in different forms and technologies. Whatever the type is, it only has one goal, and that is to give us a closer look at the very foundations of living organisms – of life!